ON THE RADIO
We reprise a popular show from October 2011. 1) David Montgomery, author of a book called King of Fish: The Thousand Year Run of Salmon 2) Sarah Parsons from Change.org on a campaign to ban shark finning in California 3) Avital Binshtock from Sierra magazine shares tips to green your breakfast. Listen | Subscribe

PROTECTGrand Canyon Lands Saved
The Interior Department just announced a 20-year ban of new mining on 1 million acres around the Grand Canyon.

For decades, the trend has been toward more days of increasingly extreme weather, and 2011 was probably the worst year for weather-related natural disasters worldwide since Noah built his ark. Climate disruption is already costing billions of dollars and killing thousands of people.

On December 21, the Obama administration and the EPA announced the first federal protections against mercury emissions from power plants.

Twenty years in the making, these groundbreaking protections will prevent as many as 11,000 premature deaths and 4,700 heart attacks a year, and 130,000 cases of childhood asthma and 6,300 cases of acute bronchitis.
They will also create jobs and spur clean-energy innovation.

More than 75 percent of Americans support the Environmental Protection Agency's work to keep our air and water clean. Just last December, the Clean Air Act was updated to allow the EPA to reduce mercury pollution for the first time, ensuring our children grow up in a safer world.

Gray wolves are majestic icons of the Rocky Mountains, but they have struggled for more than a century to survive hunting and habitat destruction.

Now they're making a comeback, but a deal that the Obama administration just made with the state of Wyoming could reverse that -- wolves in most of the state could be chased to exhaustion and gunned down by anyone at any time.

Longoria is the executive producer of The Harvest, a new documentary about young migrant laborers on U.S. farms. She's also a restaurateur and cookbook author who's committed to sustainable foods.

Photo courtesy of Cinema Libre Studio

Protect the Polar Bear Seas

Big Oil wants to drill in the Polar Bear Seas of the Arctic, home to 20 percent of the world's polar bears as well as wildlife like beluga whales, ice seals, and migratory birds.
An oil spill in this area would be impossible to clean up.